iPhone Passion

via JoyOfTech

Colin, a student blogger passionate about Mac development, has written an impressive and insightful article about the architecture of the Cocoa software that runs on the iPhone.
While all of his theories are just that - theories,(since Apple has not disclosed so far any details about iPhone software programming), they are still very well-conceived. Basically, Colin’s remarks make a lot of sense:

- there are no “Windows”, only full-screen “Views”, and whenever you switch the app you actually commute the view; something similar happens with the Pocket PC
- the GUI library is a stripped-down version of Cocoa - no scroll-bars, since they’d take up vital screen space, full-width horizontal toolbars.
- the Cocoa controls are themed with big bold fonts and lighter colors

The Screen is another thing to take into consideration. Clearly whoever is using the iPhone can switch the view from portrait to landscape at anytime so your app needs to take advantage of that. Im guessing here 1 of 2 things happens

Colin does something even more exciting: he mocks-up an iPhone simple app, trying to figure out how things might look and the ways we could develop them.

All in all, a very exciting article. Now all we have to do is:
1. wait for the iPhone to come out
2. wait for some brilliant hacker to manage to install custom-made apps on the iPhone
3. wait for some (other) hacker to put together some development tools for the iPhone.

The sad part, off course, is that it should have been Steve’s Job (Pun intended) to open up the platform and the 2 and 3 points as well. Sadly, this is not the case…

According to Gizmodo, analysts have speculated that each of the shiny iPhones will generate nearly 50% gross margin.

“iSuppli estimates the 4Gbyte version of the Apple iPhone will carry a $229.85 hardware BoM and manufacturing cost and a $245.83 total expense, yielding a 50.7 percent margin on each unit sold at the $499 retail price,” said Andrew Rassweiler, teardown services manager and senior analyst for iSuppli. “Meanwhile, the 8GByte Apple iPhone will sport a $264.85 hardware cost and a $280.83 total expense, amounting to a 53.1 percent margin at the $599 retail price.”

Off course, nobody even looks at the huge costs of R&D, the pattents, the marketing, the design, the sales force. I’d say their real margin is around 30% and will grow up as the sales rise.

According to this blog , Jeff Han, the inventor of the multitouch screen that everyone raved at during February 2006 has in fact turned down Apple’s offer. His plans? To turn his new company, Perceptive Pixel, into a major player. It seems that Apple’s iPhone multitouch is in fact based on the technology from Synaptics.

Han’s technology seems to be the basis for LG’s PRADA phone which is coming in fast steps, and although iPhone has the buzz right now, I guess the PRADA is going to be a major success; smaller, maybe more feminine, less gadgety and the first to hit European stores.

Read the rest of this entry »

From Lifehacker we heard about one of the coolest torrents around: apparently you can find the complete archive of Steve Jobs keynotes ever since his return to Apple.
Maybe not as exciting as an action flick, but a nice piece of history to have around. After all…

It’s worth downloading just to see how much Apple has changed and/or innovated in one decade.

Here is the direct link to pirate bay’s page. And, please, people, if you donwload it, then seed it as well…

The guys from 37signals have a pretty novel idea: what if, for the iPhone, one could define motion-trail shortcuts to launch his favorite apps? Given that the multi-touch screen allows several contact points simultaneously (Steve showed us two-finger gestures, but we could hope for even more), then the various motion shortcuts are numerous. For Firefox we already have the extensions for motion-based shortcuts. Why not something similar on the iPhone?
Anyway, read their idea over here. I say it’s worth thinking about…

The BoingBoing guys have made my day. Here is the coolest Apple phone image I saw lately. As they say: Apple phone: no need to wait for June on this one.

Techcrunch has an interesting insight on Apple’s UGLY practice of bullying bloggers, that’s getting UGLIER by the minute. You know the first case: Apple taking bloggers to court because of published pictures of the Mac Mini.
Now, they are getting beyond the absurd: somebody created a skin for Windows Mobile phones that looks exactly like the new iPhone user interface. Somebody else created one for the Palm. Now, Apple lawyers are threatening all bloggers that even LINK to the software in question.
I believe Apple is BAD whenever doing this. While the creators of the skins in question might breach the copyright(although, come on, the iPhone won’t be any less successful because of these skins; even more, they will make it even more popular), the persons linking to them are in a very legal position, nonetheless.
SO. Without any further ado.
Also, please read engadget’s take on the matter . Dont’ forget to read gizomodo’s one as well.

How to install? Read details at the links pointed from techcrunch, and here as well.

Why on Earth would I donate anything just to see the so-much-awaited gadget of the year smashed to pieces?

People, please, don’t donate any money (though it doesn’t seem you do, anyways - there’s been one dollar raised so far). If you prefer, donate me some money in order NOT to smash an iPhone. Well, donate some anyways and I promise I won’t smash it. Period.